Manual:Infantry Manual:Tactical:Goelinusa

Combat Report: Ambush at Goelinusa
August 14, 2373. Goelinusa, a Federation protectorate, has just experienced a military coup in its capital city. Insurgents of the Opamsi faction, a militant religious order with left-of-government leanings, have stormed the capital, commandeered the resources of the planet’s recently upgraded information services net, and are eliminating their political enemies and members of what they term the “bourgeoisie”. Starfleet Intelligence indicates their doctrine may have been partially inspired from 19th and 20th century Earth’s Communist ideology. The Opamsi have advanced weapons procured from Orion and Ferengi smugglers, and have incapacitated the government’s forces. The government has appealed to the Federation for help. Within hours of their initial contact, the 284th Marine Strike Group, along with other forces, are on the way. And soon thereafter, an ambush is being set in.

Gunnery Sergeant Tom Witt, 3rd Infantry Platoon leader: Third Infantry Platoon beamed into the area of operations on Goelinusa’s Continental Plain with intelligence that the Pansies were executing persons there after a “trial” of sorts with some kangaroo religious court. We had three squads with M-116s and a fourth squad with screens, 505s, and one MAPLIML. All my squad leaders had TDRs to help out the gunner. The Pansies only had a few heavy weapons in that area, according to intelligence.

Everything happened really fast once we landed. I sent in two ambushes on two highways running parallel with the Mapper in between, in some cover so he could fire indirect with the rangefinders, and the screens scattered about. Between our eloflage and our field craft, there was no way they were going to see us until we opened up.

All of a sudden, here come a bunch of flatbeds on the first highway full of people with two commandeered police cruisers full of Pansy gunmen in front and back, alternately, about forty yards away from the flatbeds. Another convoy — this one all troops or Pansy sympathizers coming to watch the executions, is about five hundred meters behind the flatbeds. We lit up our 505s and I told the MISS operators to stand by in case we missed any. Alpha one’s WGL sends a plasma round right through the guard car in the flatbed group.

There was a flash, a hiss, and the car just shot up on it’s hover systems and nose-dived-- I mean BOOM, right into the asphalt, with whatever Pansies were still alive, screaming what remained of their lives out. All of the metal in the vehicle was burning from the PCP. The fuel package explodes. The flatbeds swerve.

About this time, those follow-ons have figured out that the head-removal line is breaking down, and they all slow down and hesitate, but it’s the last thing they every do because Bravo Two’s leader has a TDR on the lead vehicle and here comes a MAPLIML round out of High Angle Hell, BOOM WHROOOSH launched, up in air, seeker head kicks it around, and it blazes straight into the spot where the TDR’s EM designator is pointing it to. A CDM round detonates right in the middle of all of them. You see a blue flash as the round disperses the agent all over the vehicles and then the wall of flame, and the shock wave that WHAMBARRRAMMMS over you a few seconds later. CDM rocks — we call‘em “Blue Moon Rounds”, you have to be damned careful you’re nowhere near‘em when they go, not out of a MAPLIML. Almost too powerful for us to use many times.

Anyway, they find a big, carbonized area with melted vehicles, skeletons, a few fragments of weapons, teeth, and such later. No one from that second bunch returned fire. The Pansies in the second vehicle and on the flatbeds, the guards for the people, are panicking because they figure that their vehicles are going next, and they are firing. They had some pretty hot stuff. But our MISS arrays were on and it all explodes against our screens. Rough on the vegetation, but we don’t lose anyone. A few seconds later we’ve gotten the last of them because they’ve got no screens and they’re running around in our crossfire.

I give the order to advance. Our MISS operators move out with their systems onto the kill zone, with everyone else deploying behind them with minimum standoff between the screen perimeter and them. They’re shooting stun blasts into anyone they have on the ground, just to make sure. We weren’t using stun earlier though, except for shooting into the flatbeds-- unless you aim real precise, it won’t put ‘em down if they’re wearing armor or if they’re drugged up seriously; not like the movies. One ager beaver was faking it and threw a grenade at us, and it bounced off the screen and detonated killed him, and just missed the people on a flatbed.

We cleared the area, and searched the people, and then got them out of there and to one of the refuge camps that the crew from the U.S.S. Umiak was setting up. We had sort of a security problem with all of them trying to hug our troops — they’d been about two miles and a few minutes away from a big draw cut across the neck area. But hey, you couldn’t blame ‘em.

The Goelinusa uprising was successfully stopped, and the elected government was reinstated and harmony restored within weeks of the Marines’ arrival. Few of the Opamsi leaders ever answered for their actions in trial. A Marine armored unit assaulted their base camp and none of the leaders were willing to surrender, preferring to shoot it out with the Marine tanks.